Can you imagine staying in business if you lost 10,000 items owned by your paying customers? How about if you lost 10,000 items a day for an entire year?
The latest report card from the American Department of Transportation reveals that the domestic airline industry did exactly that. The worst offender was US Airways who logged 9.62 lost baggage claims for every thousand passengers who flew with them. Delta Airlines, which logged 7.09 complaints, lost the highest raw number of bags-an astounding 573,419 in 2005.
This was the worst year since 1990. Officials blamed increased security inspections, more passengers and tighter budget cuts for the 3.5 million lost luggage complaints received by the airlines in 2005.
This is not a good way to run a business.